California Paid Family Leave

Overview

California Paid Family Leave (CA-PFL) provides eligible employees with partial wage replacement to bond with a new child, care for a family member with a serious health condition, or address a qualifying military exigency. This policy provides wage replacement only and does not include job protection.

For detailed legislative requirements, see our Legislative Guidance.

Policy Status Decisions

This policy is administered by the state unless the employer has an approved plan to administer on their own.

💡 Best Practice: Follow the state's decision so the policy status matches the state's determination for benefits.

How to Use

Throughout this guidance, look for these labels to quickly identify what actions may be needed:

✅ Automatic: System handles this automatically, no action needed

📝 Configuration Note: How the policy is set up in the platform

💡 Best Practice: AbsenceSoft recommendation for optimal management

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: User must complete this action or track elsewhere

How AbsenceSoft Manages the Law

AbsenceSoft manages this law through 1 policy.

• Policy Name - California Paid Family Leave

• Policy Code - CA-PFL

• Benefit Type - Paid Leave

Administration Options

California Paid Family Leave can be administered through:

• State Plan (default)- administered by the California Employment Development Department (EDD)

• Private Plans (fully or self-insured) - Requires custom policies

💡 Best Practice: Employers with a private plan should customize the existing policy to meet their state approved requirements and change the policy type to Company to show the policy is owned by the employer.

Employer Coverage Requirements

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Excluded Employers

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Excluded employers are not covered under the law and may need to disable the policy in the platform to keep it from rendering. Discuss decisions with legal counsel for best approach.

Employee Eligibility

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

This policy is a state paid leave program that may have eligibility criteria tied to wages/earnings that are not available in the platform. Employers should follow the state's determination for the wage replacement policy.

💡 Best Practice: Follow the state's decision so the policy status matches the state's determination for eligibility.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Overrides in eligibility may be required if the state determines the employee has not met the eligibility requirements necessary for paid benefits.

Eligibility Exceptions

Excluded Employees

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility from pass to fail for excluded employees.

Leave Entitlements and Duration

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Entitlement Overview

All CA-PFL absence reasons share a single combined entitlement of up to 8 work weeks, measured over a 12-month period rolling forward.

• Bonding

• Adoption/Foster Care

• Pregnancy/Maternity

• Family Health Condition

• Qualifying Exigency

✅ Automatic: AbsenceSoft automatically tracks entitlement usage against the shared 8-work-week pool across all CA-PFL absence reasons.

💡 Best Practice: Follow the state's decision so the policy status matches the state's determination for benefits.

📝 Configuration Note: CA-PFL entitlement is measured in calendar weeks — benefits are payable for every calendar day, including weekends. AbsenceSoft configures CA-PFL entitlement in work weeks per case to support payroll calculations; the legal entitlement remains 8 calendar weeks per 12-month rolling forward period.

📝 Configuration Note: A policy event starts CA-PFL Bonding entitlement if bonding leave dates are entered and immediately follows pregnancy disability, since pregnancy disability is covered under the separate California Disability Insurance (CA-STD) policy.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Update the case's bonding start and delivery dates as needed so the policy event applies the correct entitlement period.

Pay and Benefits

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

Benefit Coordination

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: No agreement-tracking is available in the platform; employers wishing to enforce or track a PTO/top-off agreement with employees receiving CA-PFL benefits will need to track this outside the platform.

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's policy is not configured to exclude work-related disabilities, as this is not always automatic and instead situational. Configuring an exclusion on this policy would prevent proper handling of these cases until the workers' compensation claim is resolved.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Case managers should review any workers' compensation situations individually and determine how to proceed based on the state's recommendation.

Elimination Period

📝 Configuration Note: CA-PFL is configured with a 7-calendar-day elimination period before benefits begin.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Confirm the state's determination on whether the waiting period applies before approving benefits on a new claim.

Interaction with other Policies

Refer to Legislative guidance for details.

📝 Configuration Note: CA-PFL is configured as Not Concurrent With California Disability Insurance (CA-STD) and California Pregnancy Disability (CA-CPDL). An employee may not receive benefits under CA-PFL and those policies at the same time.

Required Paperwork/Communication

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft provides core paperwork for CA-PFL through the CA Paid Family Leave (CAPFL) and CA Paid Family Leave for Military Family Members (CAPFLMILITARY) paperwork/attachments.

CA-PFL certification forms are not available in the platform and are made available to the employee through the California Employment Development Department (EDD) program’s online portal. Employers will not be notified of claim approval unless the employee has agreed to share that information.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Updates to existing paperwork items can occur. When updates happen, they are automatically applied to paperwork unless the client has customized. Clients with customizations on the relevant paperwork will need to review to determine how to adopt the new paperwork and apply any new customizations to the updated paperwork manually.

Payroll Calculations

This policy uses a Base Wage Calculation Method developed from information published by the state of California. It aims to closely replicate the calculations performed by the California Employment Development Department (EDD).

Pay History

Uses the 5 most-recent quarterly totals, removing the most recent quarter and using the oldest four.

📝 Configuration Note: Gross quarterly totals should include all wages reported to the California Employment Development Department (EDD), including base wages, overtime, bonuses, commissions, and tips. Annual bonuses are reported in the quarter paid. California uses the single highest of the remaining four quarters; a bonus-heavy quarter may be selected and could increase the benefit estimate.

Policy Configuration

A State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) and a State Weekly Max are configured in the policy's Benefit Settings.

📝 Configuration Note: Current State Weekly Max is $1,765 and State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW) is $1,789, effective January 1, 2026.

California Base Wage Calculation Method Logic

1. Retrieve Pay History:

   1. Retrieve the last five full quarters of pay history prior to the Leave Start Date. Remove the most recent quarter, leaving the oldest four. The most recent (excluded) quarter is not required to be present in pay history.

2. Calculate the employee's Average Weekly Wage (AWW):

   1. Identify the quarter with the highest total earnings among the remaining four.

   2. Divide the highest quarterly earnings by 13 to determine the employee's Average Weekly Wage (AWW).

3. Calculate the Base Weekly Wage:

   1. Apply the state benefit percent to the AWW:

      1. If less than $300, the employee is not eligible. Set the benefit to $0.

      2. If between $300 and $722.49, set the benefit to $50.

      3. If between $722.50 and $16,279.90, apply the state benefit percent (90%): AWW × 0.90.

      4. If between $16,279.91 and $20,931.30, set the benefit to $1,127.

      5. If more than $20,931.31, apply the state benefit percent (70%): AWW × 0.70.

   2. Retrieve the state max from Benefit Settings within the Policy Configuration.

   3. If the calculated benefit exceeds the state max, cap the result at the state max.

   4. Return this as the Base Weekly Wage.

📋 Configuration Note: The value returned is an AbsenceSoft estimate based on the state's published formula. This estimate should be used for planning purposes only and confirmed against the official state determination before being treated as final.

💡 Best Practice: Confirm any policy customizations have the correct rates before relying on them.

📝 Configuration Note: Payroll Calculations are available based on the client package. If you want to learn more about Payroll Calculations, reach out to your CSM representative.

Need Help?

For questions about policy configuration or case management, contact your AbsenceSoft support team or consult the Legislative Guidance for compliance details.